


Call the Lightning Down

by tryslora



Series: All Our Yesterdays [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Divorce, Fear of Death, Fear of Thunder and Lightning, Future Fic, M/M, Thunder and Lightning, implied infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their daughter’s medically induced coma wears on their nerves, and the lightning storm outside only serves to make Stiles feel worse. Jackson wades carefully through treacherous waters to comfort him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call the Lightning Down

**Author's Note:**

> I was driving home during a big storm yesterday when this story (and all the headcanon for the series that goes with it) came to me. I wanted to do something a little different for the fullmoon_ficlet death prompt, and I hope you like it. As always, I do not own the world or characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them.

Allison finally convinces Jackson to step out of Nikki’s room, just long enough to take a quick shower and change into the clothes she brought for him. While she has him, she and Scott manage to get him down to the cafeteria. Allison sends Scott back up with food for Stiles, while she sits with Jackson and goes over the details needed for Amanda’s arrival the next day.

For that half hour, things seem blissfully mundane. In the end, his clothes are clean, his stomach is full, and he has strength to go back into that room where his daughter lies in a medically induced coma, and his ex-husband radiates hate so strongly that Jackson can smell it.

It’s funny how much it smells like fear.

Stiles is asleep when he walks in, head pillowed on his arm against the bed, shoulders rising and falling slowly with every breath. He twitches as the room lights brightly in the darkness from a flash of lightning. Jackson counts silently, waiting for several seconds before the boom comes, and Stiles eases again.

He never has liked the lightning, not since… well, Jackson can’t blame him.

Jackson drags the second chair next to where Stiles sits and drops into it, his hand settling at the base of Stiles’s back. He lets his palm go flat, feels the heat of his ex-husband’s body through his shirt. When Stiles stirs, Jackson murmurs something wordless, trying to tell him to go back to sleep. But another flash wakes Stiles, and he jumps at the thunder, closer now.

“Get away from me,” Stiles snaps, twisting in his chair.

Jackson holds out his hand, palm up. “You need an anchor.”

A short, sharp bitter laugh answers him. “I’ve managed through a decade of storms on my own, Jackson. I’ve slept through them, driven through them, held Nikki through them. I can pretend well enough now.”

“It’s still pretending, though, isn’t it?” Jackson tilts his head, sees the lines around Stiles’s eyes. “Do you remember that night when Nikki crawled into bed with us? I think she was four.”

Stiles jumps out of his seat, stalking several feet away before he turns. “What is it with you and the remembering? That’s the kind of game you play when you’re losing someone and you’re trying to cling to any thread that will hold them here. We’re not losing Nikki. We are _not_.”

 _We_. Jackson doesn’t let himself smile at the word, knowing Stiles would take it back if he noticed he’d said it. “I’m trying to distract you, and storytelling’s the only option I’ve got.” He spreads his hands. “So. There we were, Nikki shivering like a lost puppy, and you weren’t much better. And she looked at you with those big eyes and asked if you were scared. And you, you said—”

“Yes,” Stiles says quietly. “I said yes, because I’m still mortal and squishable and most importantly where lightning is concerned, electrocutable. And lightning’s angry and violent, and it takes things away. I said a lot of things that night I shouldn’t have said to a four year old. Especially one who has her own reasons to be terrified of the storms.”

“Do you think she remembers it?”

Stiles shrugs, and there is something defeated in the way his shoulders move. “I doubt it. But maybe. They say that a near death experience as a baby can leave someone with PTSD and she is… she’s terrified of death, Jackson. She’s had panic attacks just thinking about it. She told me that she can imagine it, just becoming… nothing… and it terrifies her to think about it. So maybe something inside her does remember, at least a little.”

“Then it’s a good thing she has her dad to protect her.” Because for all that Jackson is the wolf, Stiles is the one who has always been the protector in the family. Stiles has always been the fierce father, the one who would arm Nikki against the world, and at the same time, make sure that world couldn’t get near his baby girl.

A choked cough gets his attention, and when he looks over, Stiles is rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, looking away. “That’s just it,” Stiles mutters. “She won’t always have me. She’s growing up, Jackson. And now this. _This_ , when she was out with Caleb. I can’t be there every time. I can’t chase off death. I’m not… I’m only human. I couldn’t save her mother, and what if someday I can’t save her?”

There is nothing Jackson can say to that, nothing that would be both true and would help, and Stiles isn’t in any sort of headspace for platitudes or reality, particularly not from Jackson. He takes two steps closer to Stiles, and when he doesn’t back away, Jackson reaches out, pulling Stiles in. Stiles is taller, but he bends his head, exhausted, to lay it on Jackson’s shoulder. 

“I still hate you,” Stiles mutters.

“Sit back down, hold Nikki’s hand through the storm.” Jackson keeps his breathing even, his voice as calm as he can. “Let her know you’re here. I know she needs you.”

“Where are you going?” Stiles twists as he sits, but Jackson moves away to the window, dragging the chair with him.

He puts it right in front of the window, and sits facing it. “I’m staring the storm down, Stiles. If the lightning wants to get you two again, it’s going to have to come through me. Now sleep.”

Jackson doesn’t know if it works or it doesn’t, but Stiles goes silent and his heart is even. Jackson’s phone vibrates and he pulls it from his pocket, looking at the message.

_How’s it going? Any news?_

Jackson sighs and types back. _No change, and he hates me. But we knew that. If it weren’t for Nikki, I wouldn’t have come back._

He can imagine her voice as he reads her next message. _Did you tell him yet?_

Jackson shakes his head, even though she can’t see him. _Tomorrow’s soon enough._

_Tell him, Jackson. Don’t rely on making him see, or making him guess. Tell him._

Jackson doesn’t answer, turning the phone off and tucking it back in his pocket. Tonight’s for holding off the lightning. Tomorrow’s soon enough for trouble to tear them apart again.


End file.
